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3 months ago
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Thoughts now turning to the Newcastle team v Southampton.
Saturday seeing Newcastle United lift the Sela Cup after winning 1-0 against Brest.
The six pre-season friendlies saw United going unbeaten, with an impressive five wins and one defeat.
Interesting to see how many minutes on the pitch for each of the Newcastle United players in the pre-season friendlies.
So have the right players got the right number of minutes this summer?
Newcastle has played SpVgg Unterhaching, Hull City, Urawa Red Diamonds and Yokohama F Marinos, Girona and Brest, with a maximum of 540 minutes available for each player (ignoring injuries, suspensions, extended leave due to international duty etc).
These are the highest to lowest in terms of minutes for Newcastle United players so far in pre-season (Just in case the breakdown for each player needs explaining: S = SpVgg Unterhaching, H = Hull City, U = Urawa Red Diamonds, Y = Yokohama F Marinos, G= Girona and B = Brest):
374 Hall (S45, H85, U90, Y64, G90)
360 Krafth (S45, H90, U90, Y45, G90)
353 Joelinton (S45, H64, U90, Y64, G90)
348 Burn (S45, H90, U79, Y45, G89)
324 Jacob Murphy (S45, H74, U70, Y45, G90)
323 Barnes (S45, H64, U79, Y45, B90)
304 Isak (S45, H64, U61, Y45, G89)
301 Pope (S45, H74, U61, Y45, G76)
270 Longstaff (S45, U45, Y90, G90)
269 Livramento (H64, U70, Y45, G90)
235 Lewis (S45, H74, Y26, B90)
232 Jamie Miley (S45, H79, U45, G63)
225 Almiron (U45, Y90, B90)
215 Sanusi (S45, H26, U11, Y43, G45, B45)
180 Vlachodimos (S45, H16, U29, Y45, B45)
172 Parkinson (S45, H26, U29, Y45, G27)
162 Alfie Harrison (S45, H26, U20, Y26, B45)
135 Kelly (Y45, B90)
135 Bruno (Y45, B90)
133 Willock (U45, B88)
128 Schar (Y45, B83)
93 Turner-Cooke (S45, H26, U20, Y2)
69 Trippier (B69)
68 Osula (B68)
66 Ashby (Y45, B21)
64 Stanton (S45, H11, B7, G1)
61 Emerson (S45, H16)
56 Heffernan (S45, U11)
45 Gordon (G45)
45 Dubravka (B45)
45 Kuol (S45)
45 Shahar (S45)
45 White (S45)
23 Hernes (G1, B22)
16 Munda (H16)
14 Ruddy (G14)
5 Charlton (H5)
0 Targett
0 L Miley
0 Botman
0 Tonali
0 Wilson
0 Lascelles
0 Gillespie
0 Hayden
0 Fraser
A massive 46 Newcastle United players listed above and 37 of them in total have played in the six first-team friendlies.
So based purely on the most pre-season minutes, that would make the Newcastle team v Southampton look something like this:
Pope, Livramento, Krafth, Burn, Lewis, Longstaff, Hall, Joelinton, Barnes, Jacob Murphy, Isak
The only one of those eleven that I’d rule out for sure to start against Southampton is Jamal Lewis. However, no surprise if any/all of the other ten start against the Saints, my assumption would be Bruno starting and of course, Hall playing left-back, rather than the at times central midfield role he has occupied in pre-season. Who will play alongside Burn in the middle of the defence maybe a choice for Eddie Howe to make, though you’d fancy Schar to still play there, Howe indicated yesterday that it wasn’t something to worry about when the Swiss defender came off late against Brest after getting a knock.
(I just had a look back at summer 2023 and these were the eleven Newcastle United players who played the most minutes in pre-season friendlies – Trippier, Botman, Burn, Targett, Anderson, L Miley, Ritchie, Almiron, Gordon, Tonali, Bruno)

 
